I Pledge to Make it OK! Mental Health Awareness, May 2017

I PLEDGE to Make it OK!

To recognize Mental Health Awareness Month in May, FirstLight is launching a campaign called “I Pledge to Make it OK”, following the national campaign, ‘Make It OK’, to change people’s hearts and minds about the misunderstandings surrounding mental illnesses.

We want to encourage people to talk more openly about mental illness and learn more about common conditions to help reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.

Mental health stigma can be exclusion, silence, labeling, or a negative attitude displayed.

The national campaign, Make it OK, explains mental illness as:

Treatable health conditions that are very common in the world today. Mental illnesses can affect anyone, without regard to age, race, religion or income.

What can you do?

By pledging to ‘Make it OK’ to talk about mental illness, we all can encourage others to talk openly about mental illness, learn more about mental illness, not let stigma create shame around the illness, and encourage treatment to someone suffering from mental illness–

These will all help reduce the stigma!

By reducing the stigma, people experiencing mental illnesses will be treated with more respect, acceptance and may be more apt to get the care they need.

Through this campaign, in May our #FirstLightFamily and collaborating community partners will encourage everyone to take the pledge and wear a green bracelet to bring awareness to mental health conditions.

If you would like to be part of this, come to any one of our entrances at all of our locations and pick up your green bracelet. Show your commitment to Make it OK, by “I Pledge to Make it OK!”